Tuesday, 22 March 2016

Seven Fold Tie

If you've been paying attention to my friend Joe's tie making shenanigans (here and here), you'll know he's been hankering to make a traditional seven fold tie (constructed from one single piece of fabric folded seven times, so no separate lining required). Patterns for seven fold ties are like gold dust, but after a lengthy perusal of the interweb I eventually found this:

What I actually purchased was a copy of this original 1940's vintage pattern, but there it was in writing - seven fold - I was excited. I decided to mock one up in calico to check where all the folds went, which is when I discovered the pattern only had four fold lines. Nooooo! When Mr Tie Expert arrived he confirmed my suspicions, the pattern just wasn't wide enough, in fact it was extremely narrow - think 1940's with a hint of 1980's Kraftwerk thrown in for good measure.

Little know fact: the first time I met my husband was at a 1980's party - I came as a member of Kraftwerk complete with slicked back hair, red shirt and thin black tie….

Anyway, back to ties. We decided to use the vintage pattern as a starting point and add three more fold lines of our own. Using a diagram we'd found online as a guide and a bit of slapdash maths, we made our very own seven fold tie pattern.

There was just one seam to sew on the sewing machine, then a bit of hand stitching of the hem...

and a loooong time at the ironing board trying to work out the order in which the bloody thing needed folding. I should point out that Joe was a dedicated tie-making professional at this point, concentrating fully on the task in hand. Even my constant interruptions to show him the changing hairstyles of Hall & Oates over the years didn't distract him, he was a man on a mission.

The fold lines weren't perfectly exact, so there was a bit of fudging to be done, but he got there in the end. Ladies and gents, I give you a genuine, handmade seven fold tie!

Joe's choice of fabric - a dark navy linen from Liberty - was a lovely quality, but I did have my suspicions about how well it would drape. I needn't have worried, the fact that the pattern pieces are cut on the bias makes it hang beautifully. I also really like how the bias grain of the linen looks in a solid colour. He catch-stitched the edges together and finished off with two tiny white buttons.

All in all, an excellent day's work. And now that he has a pattern to work from, this will just be the first of many, I'm sure of it. x

29 comments:

Ooh, as fellow tie maker I am SO impressed. I can't quite get my head round how it works but well done - I'll be on the hunt myself now for a seven fold tie. I love the button - what a funky little detail to finish. Well done!

Hat's off to you both for working out the pattern and folds. Maths is not my strong suit! I love the little button detail. Who knew that a plain navy blue tie could be so special. I bought a tie making kit from Sew Over It at the end of last year. I really must get round to having a go.

Very cool- out of interest I googled, and immediately found this free pattern: http://www.tie-a-tie.net/blog/7-fold-ties-what-it-means/As a recent convert to homemade pleating boards, my method to simplify the folding and pressing would be to make the pattern out of lining paper glued fabric, then fold up the tie piece inside it, pressing along the way. This would avoid any shininess introduced by the pressing, and make life easier...what do you think?

Ah, if only it were that easy, we've tried to download that free pattern so many times, but it never works! I've even emailed the author a couple of times asking for help but had no reply, it's obviously not meant to be! x

Wow! That was really fascinating! I like the 7 fold the best. Especially so, after seeing the construction of the one your hubby "pounced on" for Christmas. That Christmas one is fab (and so are all his photos and role models), but the 7 fold looks like it came from Nordstrom! Dang!!

Oh wow! My Dad is pretty much always sporting a tie and loves the liberty / boy art lined one that I made him based on the SOI kit last Christmas. It's wonky as heck (silk is not the best thing to choose when making your first tie!) but I was so proud of it. If Joe ever fancies sharing his pattern I'd be snaffling it up pretty much instantaneously!